Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
Accidents happen. An accident in a floating drydock took a British BB out of the war, and made an American destroyer Japanese. Could happen to any ship at any time. You play the game and you take your chances.

Then there was the demise of the Mutsu. I am sure the IJN was not very happy about that, but it happened.

Andrew

I have no problems with any of the following but, ships blowing up in port? This is something that could ruin a campaign if it happens to the wrong ship at the wrong time more than once, I would hate to see an AE campaign  that takes a thousand hours come down to random numbers. We all know random numbers aren't all that random over the course of time and in game like AE that is a concern.


(ship) breaks towline and is lost at (location) You'll only see this one when moving ARD around. These guys are not very seaworthy and hard to "tow". Towing, of course, is not implemented but is assumed in any movement of ARDs or any out-of-fuel ship.

(ship) collides with (ship) at (location) Odds of this are much lower than reality. We may have to jack them up.

(ship) hits uncharted rock at (location) Only when running in shallow water, of course.

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen


(ship) hits uncharted rock at (location) Only when running in shallow water, of course.

This actually happened quite a number of times. The Kriegsmarine was prone to that in Norwegian waters. But bad luck also happens with charted obstacles, for instance, one of the US subs that sank three IJN CA's before Leyte (USS Darter?) ran aground on a coral reef because the navigators couldn't see the red reef markings on the chart due to red lighting in the boat (to conserve night vision). Even more bizarre was the case of the RN cruiser HMS Effingham during the Norway campaign: the Navigating Officer marked the intended course on the chart and with his pencil line unwittingly obscured the mark for an isolated rock. The ship ran right on track and ripped its guts out on the rock. Thirty meters to either side and nothing would have happened - a rare case of professional helmsmanship being a cause of disaster.

BTW, reading accounts of PT operations, it seems as if the most frequent cause of PT losses was running aground in shallow water. Will this be appropriately modelled in AE? Ships (boats) operating predominantly inshore should be prone to that kind of event.

I've always been for random events - poo happens in wartime when following safety regulations isn't always the number one priority. I'd like to see, now and then, an ammunition or fuel dump on land blow up. That must have happened occasionally. It would also be plausible as a possible event due to an air attack or a bombardment - be it naval or LCU.

From what I've read/understood AE is using CHS as its basis of the OOB, but I might be wrong. CHS itself has lots of different ships, one of my favourite being the 40kt Abdiel class ML. Which my the way in 1965 could still do well over 35kts and if my memory serves me well, with one of its boilers removed.

ORIGINAL: pad152

I have no problems with any of the following but, ships blowing up in port? This is something that could ruin a campaign if it happens to the wrong ship at the wrong time more than once, I would hate to see an AE campaign  that takes a thousand hours come down to random numbers. We all know random numbers aren't all that random over the course of time and in game like AE that is a concern.

There is some cushioning, but loss of a capital ship to accident during repair is possible. Repair events do not directly sink a ship, they just add more damage. If the damage level gets to 99, the ship sinks.

ORIGINAL: Chris H

From what I've read/understood AE is using CHS as its basis of the OOB, but I might be wrong. CHS itself has lots of different ships, one of my favourite being the 40kt Abdiel class ML. Which my the way in 1965 could still do well over 35kts and if my memory serves me well, with one of its boilers removed.

AE is based on stock, with new research. Some of the CHS guys are on the AE team but that's all.

The Abdiels are in, three of them if memory serves.

Speaking from the perspective of the Naval OOB, there are many more things that could be done if we only had another 10 years or so. So much research and so much work, and issues with game balance and playability. Many of the new ship classes put in are not yet used (like YP) but are there for the modder. Have fun, y'all.

As an aside, I can tell you that we have discovered some interesting things, even some errors in commenly used web OOB sites.